They that have power to hurt and will do none (Sonnet 94)

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

They that have power to hurt and will do none   
That do not do the thing they most do show,   
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,   
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;   
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;   
They are the lords and owners of their faces,   
Others but stewards of their excellence.   
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,   
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,   
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:   
  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;   
  Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

This poem is in the public domain.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea (Sonnet 65)

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

This poem is in the public domain.

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame (Sonnet 129)

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight:
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
        All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
        To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. 

This poem is in the public domain.

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck (Sonnet 14)

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:
   Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
   Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.

This poem is in the public domain.

Orpheus

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Orpheus with his lute made trees   
And the mountain tops that freeze   
  Bow themselves when he did sing:   
To his music plants and flowers   
Ever sprung; as sun and showers 
  There had made a lasting spring.   
  
Every thing that heard him play,   
Even the billows of the sea,   
  Hung their heads and then lay by.   
In sweet music is such art, 
  Killing care and grief of heart   
  Fall asleep, or hearing, die. 

Tempest, Act V, Scene I [Where the bee sucks, there suck I]

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Ariel sings

Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.   
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Macbeth, Act I, Scene II [The merciless Macdonwald]

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

A Sergeant, explaining Macbeth’s courage in battle against the rebel Macdonwald

                   The merciless Macdonwald—
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him—from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show’d like a rebel’s whore: but all’s too weak;
For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him...

This poem is in the public domain.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II [The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne]

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Enobarbus describes Queen Cleopatra

Enobarbus: I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

Agrippa: O, rare for Antony.

Enobarbus: Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned i’ th’ marketplace, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’ air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

Agrippa: Rare Egyptian!

Enobarbus: Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper. She replied
It should be better he became her guest;
Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne’er the word of “No” woman heard speak,
Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast,
And for his ordinary, pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.

Agrippa: Royal wench!
She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed;
He plowed her, and she cropped.

Enobarbus: I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street;
And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And, breathless, pow’r breathe forth.

Maecenas: Now Antony must leave her utterly.

Enobarbus: Never; He will not:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.

This poem is in the public domain.

The Winter’s Tale Act IV, Scene II [When daffodils begin to peer]

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

A Road near the Shepherd’s Cottage. Enter Autolycus, singing.

When daffodils begin to peer,  
   With heigh! The doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year;
   For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
   With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! 
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
   For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lyra chants, 
   With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, 
Are summer songs for me and for my aunts,
   While we lie tumbling in the hay.

This poem is in the public domain.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind]

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Lord Amiens, a musician, sings before Duke Senior’s company

  Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
      As man’s ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
  Because thou art not seen,
      Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
      This life is most jolly.

  Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That does not bite so nigh
      As benefits forgot:
  Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
      As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

This poem is in the public domain.

Mistress mine, where are you roaming?]

 

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

The Clown, singing

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?  
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming  
That can sing both high and low;  
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,  
Journeys end in lovers’ meeting—          
Every wise man’s son doth know.  
  
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;  
Present mirth hath present laughter;  
What’s to come is still unsure:  
In delay there lies no plenty,—          
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,  
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

This poem is in the public domain.